Poetry
Haugtussa: The Clairvoyant Mountain Maid
Haugtussa
Arne Garborg · 1895
Opening lines
D’er Haust. Det ruskar ute
med Regn og kalde Vind.
Smaafuglen flyg mot Rute
og vilde gjerne inn.
It is autumn. Outside it storms
with rain and cold wind.
The little bird flies at the pane
and would gladly come in.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from bokselskap.no
Synopsis
In Jæren, Veslemøy, the youngest of three sisters, lives in poverty with her old mother; the eldest is dead, the other has gone to the town, and the landowner torments them. One night, the dead sister tells her that she is destined to see more than others. From then on, Veslemøy sees the animal that follows each person, and a dragon behind the landowner. Huldres, draugs and trolls crowd around her; she also knows human love, and the mountain king asks for her hand.
Context
The cycle appeared in 1895, in landsmål, the written language drawn from rural dialects that its author championed; it counts among the best-known poems in that language. It was continued in 1900 by I Helheim, the heroine's descent into the kingdom of the dead. Edvard Grieg set about twenty of the seventy-one poems to music, then kept eight, published in 1898 as opus 67, which he regarded as his finest songs.
Who it is for
A cycle of poems in Nynorsk, with no French translation, known outside Norway through Grieg's eight songs.
Prizes and reception
A classic of Nynorsk poetry, which also became, through Grieg's opus 67, a famous song cycle.